If my memory serves correctly, in the history of computers I've owned over approximately 20 years I've never owned a tower type of computer. I was strictly a laptop guy, but the fact I've gotten involved with working as a Cybersecurity Analyst and who has a side gig as a photographer mostly working with astrophotography has meant I needed more power, more RAM, and a much more powerful processor than what laptops could provide without spending literally thousands (like $2,500 - $3,000) of bucks to give me what I need. I've always been a HP loyalist, but my last laptop frankly was a total lemon so I hesitated to go back to the well again, but this seemed to have almost everything I wanted and needed for a good price too. Now I'm glad I did.
Amazon got this baby to me at warp speed (36 hours from time of order) and, with the exception of my needing to transfer about 500 GB of data from 'Lemonhead' (aka, my lobotomized, doomed-from-birth HP Pavilion laptop) to this machine, set up was also at warp speed. Once I had it booted up and had my astrophotography image processing software (which is a HUGE memory and processing hog), and Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom loaded up I gave the new guy a hardcore, pedal to the medal test drive and I was blown away. Lemonhead had a supposed quad-processor with speeds touted as being around 3.0 GHz and 16GB of RAM, and it would take that poor thing literally 2-3 minutes to load the most current version of Photoshop. This one, we'll call him 'Blur' did the same task in, no kidding, a blistering 13 seconds. I actually thought it'd had crashed because I'd looked away for a moment and missed the entire splash screen for the application and it was already fully loaded. I did it 2 more times to make sure I wasn't high for having blackouts. After three days of nearly 12 hours each putting Blur through the paces I'm still almost drunk with power. One other thing, she is literally whisper quiet. I haven't even heard a fan kick in once nor a hint of noise from the hard drive. Lemonhead's fans were noisy and constant trying to keep up with me...it was like watching Diana Ross's hair constantly blowing from the wind machines that apparently follow her everywhere she goes. Now I feel like I'm dating a mime. It's almost spooky, but I can live with it ;-)
My only complaints about Blur are that she doesn't have doesn't a built-in SD card reader (my bad for not checking that in the specs) which; a letdown for someone who needs to transfer bazillions of phots from a DSLR digital camera. It also lacks even a single USB-C port (odd for a model that supposedly came out in August 2023), and oh yeah, having a 2nd HDMI port would've been nice since I've used a two-monitor setup for a long time (with one being Lemonhead's built-in laptop screen) and I've been very used to and dependent upon having the two-screen extended desktop setup. Those are the only complaints I have for it though.
One final note / warning. If you've never had to, or never experienced a thing called updating your computer's BIOS, be prepared that once you've got your machine powered up and it begins downloading all it's tons of updates to Windows and such that are always a part of giving birth to a new cyber-baby, a BIOS update is amongst those updates. A BIOS update literally burns new information onto a chip in the computer that is the underlying instructions that tell the computer what it is, what it's parts are, and how to get to loading the operating system. The thing about flashing a new BIOS is that it is absolutely critical that you are plugged into a solid power connecting that isn't likely to fluctuate (i.e. when you turn on the microwave and the kitchen lights dim) in any way, or be interrupted or you happen to in any way power off the tower...if any of these things happen during the process it will almost certainly fry the motherboard of your new computer (i.e. lobotomize your newborn baby) and that will be that. Take it from me. 15 years ago I flashed a BIOS on a brand new HP laptop, not out of the box for even an hour and I did it on battery power not plugged in and it cost me a $1,500 laptop I'd used for perhaps a total of 35 minutes). So, it's okay to let the BIOS update do it's thing but when you see that your computer says it's updating the BIOS or anything related to UEFI DON'T TURN THE THING OFF until you're sure it's over. I get a panic attack or a case of PTSD every time I see a new BIOS update wanting to begin, and I sat through that anxiety this time but it went without a hitch. Just thought I'd give that warning to anyone not familiar with the process, now that I'm a fully experience cyber-nerd / dork. LOL.
Great computer overall. Fast as lightning and a heck of a good price to boot (pun intended). I'd thrilled with this baby so far and I definitely recommend it.
| Processor | 4.3 GHz apple_ci3 |
|---|---|
| RAM | 16 GB DDR4 |
| Memory Speed | 3200 MHz |
| Hard Drive | 256 GB HDD |
| Chipset Brand | Intel |
| Card Description | Integrated |
| Graphics Card Ram Size | 1.00 |
